Mom's Away, the kids will play, part 2

The kids survived day 1!  I slept in a little on Saturday, then put on a DVD of Bugs Bunny cartoons and went for a 5 mile run.  Joy and I have been running farther and farther down the hill at the mid-way point as she increases her distance, but the extra quarter mile I ran today felt nearly straight DOWN.  And the run back up was brutal.  I think we'll have to change our route to get Joy up to 5 miles!

I made French Toast and bacon for breakfast, and Ian and I had the leftover hashbrowns from Rockers.  We got everyone set for the day, then took Bella on a 2 mile walk.  Ellie really wanted to run with Bella, and she probably ran/walked 500 yards or so!

We went back to the house, loaded some snacks, got gas at Landstuhl, got cat food at Kaufland (my comfort level for shopping on the local economy is improving), and went to the Speyer Technical Museum.  It was about an hour away, and is just off the end of the Speyer Airport.  The main exhibit hall is a former hangar, and outside is a Boeing 747 mounted about 60 feet in the air with a slide back to the ground!  The interior of the plane has some cut away parts, and you can go to the flight deck/first class area, as well as the cargo hold.  Ian and Ellie both liked it!

 Ian and Ellie on the landing going up to the 747, with the old hangar in the back ground.

 Ian under the 747.  It's at a bit of an odd angle, and walking around in it makes you feel a little disoriented.

  Looking to the tailcone of the airplane, Ian is standing in the cargo hold, with his arms where the seats would go.

 In the distance was a beautiful cathedral. We ended up in that neighborhood looking for McDonald's for dinner...it looked like a great place to explore!

The lion was very random.  Having an 11-year-old in drama class is a blessing and a curse.

Even though this jet was a MiG, Ellie liked it because the nose and the tail were hot pink.

Ian and I liked the U-boat.  It was a post-World War II diesel-electric, from what we could gather.  I didn't realize the front end was so blunt.

Ellie, of course, has as much drama as her brother.  Here, they are being sucked into a giant turbofan engine.  Oy.

I didn't realize the Soviets made their own space shuttle.  This was a non-space flight version with jet engines for high atmosphere tests.  Turns out, they did some great work on remote-controlled flight!  And this version is far larger than the US space shuttle.  The two Soviet BURANs went into space 25 times, until the program was curtailed when the USSR failed in 1989.

Ian (did I mention he's taking a drama course?) liked the Corvette.  I liked the Mercedes 300 Gullwing coupe in the back, not to mention a beautiful Audi, a pair of Jaguars, and a Mercedes that used to belong to the King of Iraq.

We ended up closing the place, eating at McDonald's near the highway, and then heading home to bed.

Sunday was relatively routine, with Sunday School (I taught), church, lunch at a Holiday Bazaar on Rhine Ordinance Barracks that looked very similar to the one on Ramstein in September, and then a few chores.  Ellie fell asleep on the couch, and I had to wake her up for AWANA back at church.  Ian tried out a new evening course (not AWANA), and he now has a role in a drama the youth are putting on.  Did I mention he's liking his drama course?  One of our Sunday School classmates made a whole chicken with potatoes and carrots for us, felling sorry for us that Joy is away.  I also taught the lesson on FELLOWSHIP and meeting the needs of the church through small groups, so perhaps my message hit the mark.  Anyway, Ian and Ellie both made it to bed by 2100 (much later than I would've liked, but it took me 15 minutes to find Ian after church).  By the time the lunches were made, and a long-sleeved blues shirt was ironed, it was 2200!  I'm not sure how single parents do it.

Tomorrow, Ellie will go next door to her AWANA teacher's house for the day, while Ian is in school.  I'll leave work a little early to get him to hockey, then we'll have more of the 7 lbs. chicken I mentioned above.

Somewhere, in there, I'll get Air War College and the honey-do list done...I hope.